


Dollhouse

by corviiy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Anxiety, Child Abuse, M/M, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Other, Running Away, implied davekat - Freeform, its p much All About Dave, really though the davekat is more like an implied footnote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corviiy/pseuds/corviiy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave struggles to run away from his not-so-perfect life with his superstar older brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dollhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Based off daveactualstrider's prompt 
> 
> http://daveactualstrider.tumblr.com/post/137058273204/au-where-bro-is-just-as-big-a-piece-of-shit-but
> 
> Vaguely based off the song "Dollhouse" by Melanie Martinez.

_ ‘Just leave, why can’t you just leave? We’ll help you, let us help you.’ _   
  
You’re standing at the edge of your driveway, chilled air biting at your toes, hands shoved numbly in your pockets, one curled stiffly around your overheated phone. Your cheeks are hot, eyes stinging, heart beating fast as a rabbits. You’ve never gotten this far before.   
  
The first time you ever considered leaving, you’d stopped at the porch. Your heart was thudding in your chest so hard that you were afraid that he could hear it. Even though you could turn the television on, see the worn, practiced smirk of a man who’d been on the red carpet enough times to be considered seasoned. Even though you could be certain that he was a thousand miles away and would stay there long enough for you to book it, you couldn’t get past the porch.   
  
You glance back at your house. It’s large, daunting. You think moving in either direction right now is a task that is too big for someone like you. You can’t earnestly look at this place and think you want to go back inside. You don’t want to think about how you can see your whole life scribbled out in front of you there. The same old cycle. Fend for yourself for weeks at a time, find out he’s coming home via online tabloids--not because he told you--have enough time to make things presentable in case he’s bringing people. Smile. Charm. Joke. The door shuts, and he eases into the house like he’s looking for ways you’ve fucked up.   
  
There’s no winning in this scenario, ever.   
  
You could be the perfect child (you’ve tried, oh how you’ve tried), and he will find ways to show you how you’ve violated his expectations, his rules, even if he hadn’t ever vocalized what he wanted you to do. If he did, and you’re insubordinate despite a well known rule, you’re basically kissing your ability to walk right for the next few days goodbye.    
  
And you don’t love him. You’ve never loved him. He’s never loved you, even if he says it for the cameras. Even if he fist bumps you in public, tweets about how he’s proud of you, makes a big deal of your birthday on social media. Behind closed doors, he doesn’t love you.    
  
You’re a trophy child at best and a punching bag at worst, and you know that.   
  
What’s more, when you look at the neat white slatted panelling of your house, you know that not a soul in the world would believe you. Well. That’s not true. You know at least three. But what those three fail to understand is how much you need him.   
  
You don’t love him, but you need him. You don’t know how. Rationally, you know that you can take care of yourself, but he makes you feel like you’re incompetent. Rationally, you know that you’ll be fine if you left, but he makes you feel like he is your only safety net in the world. In your right mind, you know that everything you have in your life besides the roof over your head is something you gave yourself. Knowledge, money, clothes, survival skills. But he makes you feel ungrateful for even thinking that way. And you need him to see you as competent, self sufficient, independent, but the only way to do that is to listen to everything he says and take any beating he gives you.   
  
It’ll never end. Looking at your house, you know it’ll never end. You’re going to end up like Uncle Lester from the Addams Family before he got his memories back and was witlessly subservient to that crazy mother person.   
  
But when you look out towards the road, the unknown is so much scarier.    
  
You know your lines here. Smile without teeth, talk about how strong he is, talk about what he got you for your birthday, make sure the starchy designer clothes he puts you in for interviews and outings cover up the bruises. If you stare into space hard enough, you’ll leave yourself on autopilot. You’ll be gone, and come back later when things aren’t so hard, assured in the idea that while you were gone you did every happy thing marionettes do when their puppeteers jerk their strings.   
  
Beyond this driveway, you can’t see a thing. You can’t see your future. Here it’s bleak but at least you can see it. It’s not filled with tall what ifs and there are no absolutes.   
  
Except that if you’re caught, your brother will absolutely flay you open and serve your offal raw on ice.   
  
Your heart kicks into overdrive and you turn on your heel, pull out your phone.   
  
TG: fuck this, i’m going inside.    
TT: We’re almost there, can’t you be a little more patient?   
TG: i’m freezin my fuckin cheeks off here, lalonde.   
TG: what do you want from me?   
TT: Only what I asked. That you wait outside.   
TG: why is that important.   
TT: If you go inside, you’ll stay there. You’ll change your mind, you’ll psyche yourself out. You need to seize opportunities when they come.   
  
You scoff a little at your phone, lock it.    
  
She isn’t wrong.   
  
You keep walking up your driveway, almost turning onto the path up to the porch when your phone vibrates again. Your heart jumps into your throat, you’re sure it’s you Bro telling you to get your ass back inside.   
  
Which isn’t totally unrealistic.    
  
The second time you tried to leave, you weren’t even committing yourself to leaving for good. You told yourself that you’d just go out to a restaurant and get some food. You were so fucking hungry, it’s not like he leaves you a credit card. You’d gotten halfway down the path and stood there for about ten minutes, debating the pros and cons on going. In the end, you went back inside and dined finely on sunchips and juiceboxes. They were hidden under some crumpled linens, strategically placed in the back of the closet.    
  
Your entire room was a carefully calculated balance of messy and clean. You liked it cleaner, it gave you a peace of mind that let you get away from the discord the rest of the house was in, but you still had to keep it just messy enough for the sheets thrown cumbersomely over your stash to not look out of place.   
  
Despite all of that, he’d hit you so hard that your knees got rug burn for how fast he dropped you. Apparently there’s a security camera on the front porch.   
  
You don’t know, he could be watching you right now. He probably is.   
  
You pull out your phone, and try not to think about the exhale of relief when you see abrasive grey text.   
  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?  
CG: ROSE SAID YOU WERE HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS.  
TG: sorry, i didn’t realize i bared an actual commitment to The Runaway Squad™  
CG: THE FACT THAT YOU ACTUALLY TOOK THE TIME TO LOOK UP THE TRADEMARK SYMBOL, COPY, AND PASTE IT INTO PCHUMS ARCHAIC MOBILE APP ALL IN THE NAME OF SARCASM DURING A TIME OF LITERAL FUCKING QUASI-CRISIS   
CG: IS SO MINDBLOWINGLY IDIOTIC THAT IM TRYING REALLY HARD NOT TO JUST FLAP MY GAPING MOUTH OPEN AND CLOSED LIKE A FISH FROM HOW HARD MY JAW WANTS TO HIT THE FLOOR   
TG: oooh i get it   
CG: GET WHAT   
TG: you’re distracting me   
TG: tryin to get me to pay attention to you so yall get here before i can get inside   
TG: nice try buster brown   
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT  
CG: I’D LOVE TO TAKE CREDIT FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT BUT THE FACT IS THAT NOBODY IS QUITE AS PEDANTICALLY CALCULATED ABOUT THAT KIND OF SHIT AS YOU ARE  CG: OR PARANOID, APPARENTLY   
TG: okay, cool. still goin inside though   
CG: WE’RE LITERALLY FIVE MINUTES AWAY IF YOU GO INSIDE IM BREAKING IN AND DRAGGING YOUR SCRAWNY ASS OUT BY THE TOOTHPICK YOU CALL A LIMB AND JAMMING YOU INTO THIS VAN I SWEAR TO GOD   
  
That’s an unpleasant visual. You don’t reply, only lock up your phone and put it back in your pocket. You’d remind him that you really aren’t into that whole manhandling thing but it doesn’t seem relevant. Not only is he full of hot air, you also probably won’t be seeing him after tonight. Consider yourself single and ready to pringle.   
  
You resolve to that, go up the path of your house and you don’t even look back. You keep your head down as you walk through it, trot up the stairs and bury yourself in threadbare sheets once you get up there. It’s just a dream, this was all just a dream. As you worm your backpack off your shoulders, you try to also will your heart to calm down.   
  
It won’t.   
  
You try to think of a story, some tall tale about why you went out there with a backpack and dark clothes. It was a prank, you were invited to a party, you had to give some friend some stuff. None of it fits though, you’re starting to really feel something akin to panic, the space in your head swelling to a point where it’s dwarfing you and suffocating you all at once, and the non-stop buzzing of your phone is doing you no good at all.   
  
One look at the lock screen and you’re breaking down.    
  
Buried among numerous alerts from pesterchum is just one text.   
  
Bro: What are you doing?   
  
And you think about your life, and how your options right now are to stay here and cease to even be your own person, or to leave and let fate decide what to do with you. You don’t like the certainty, and you don’t like the uncertainty. The notion tears its way up your chest and pulls tears from your eyes. You curl up, pressed against the wall. If you pull into yourself hard enough, maybe you’ll disappear. Maybe you can squeeze your soul out of your body, maybe you’ll cease to exist. Your entire chest aches and throbs with how much you wish you could do just that, and you can feel an unending stream of wet tears flushing your face.   
  
The hand on you nearly makes you yelp. It certainly makes you jump, and sob out an apology. You think it’s him, you swear it’s him.   
  
But the hand is gentle, so gentle not even your most irrational anxiety can truly convince you that it is. It’s soft, and doesn’t force you to look at the source, only rubs soothing, warm circles into your hoodie until you can find it in you to calm down.   
  
You glance up, and even though she’s silhouetted and you’re behind a layer of pitch, you know who it is, and you know she’s smiling at you with all the patience she can contain in her earthly form.   
  
“I’m sorry.” You murmur, tucking your head back into your arms. “I can’t, Kanaya. I can’t leave. I need-I need him, I need to stay.” You murmur.    
  
She doesn’t push you. She only keeps rubbing your back gently. It’s not until you think she’s taken your no for an answer that she speaks up.    
  
“Nobody is going to make you leave this place, Dave.” She says. “You’re the only person that can make that decision, and if that is what it is, I will go down there empty handed. Heavy hearted, but empty handed.” She explains.    
  
Her words cut to the quick. She must know you’re thinking of your friends now. But not all of them as a whole, you’re just thinking of her, and how strong she is, and how weak you are.    
  
“But,” She continues. “I won’t hear you say that. You do not need him, and you know that you don’t. What you think you need is his approval. What you think you’ll get one day, if you stay here and be good is his approval. I need you to know, it isn’t true. You will never be good enough for someone like that, because he will always devise new ways to put you under the gaslight, or the line of fire. You can debunk everything he does rationally, but like the common cold, his is a disease that will always evolve to keep you under his thumb.”   
  
You know she’s not much better off than you. Sure, she’s never bruised or bloody, but you know. You know she comes from a religious family, you know she’s got every pressure on her to be perfect, obedient, and subservient. You know that she has to smile, and be kind to those who treat her badly. You know how hard this is for her too, to go against everything in her programming and just leave. And she knows better than any soul on this planet what it’s like to be where you are right now.   
  
You want to be that strong.   
  
You feel her get closer, plant a gentle kiss in your curled plumage of hair.    
  
“Stay in touch.” Is all she says, running fingers through your hair. And as quickly as she came, she’s gone.    
  
Your heart is the slowest it’s been all night from her calming presence, but rising quickly again. You reach out for your phone, look at the text.    
  
Bro: Who the fuck is that?   
  
Your jaw sets hard. Everything is hard, and stiff. Every muscle in your body screams for you to stay in your spot. It’s like arm wrestling someone stronger than you but with your whole body, standing up, fumbling around for your backpack. You pull it on, straining against hardwired instinct. Trying to work through hands that shake so hard one might think there’s something wrong with you. That your sickness is more than just the result of a bad environment.    
  
Your face is still wet, your breath is still shallow and hiccupy, you can’t pull yourself out of it, but it’s like you’re in a trance now. You grab your phone, and walk across your room. The first step out of it is like wading through molasses, or being in a dream where you try to run but can’t.    
  
The second step is easier.   
  
You’re walking like normal halfway down the stairs.   
  
You’re light as air when you get to the porch, and when you look up for your friends, they’re just starting to pull away in a large family travel van.   
  
You don’t have time to consider turning around and going back inside. Your mouth shouts the word before you can even think about it.   
  
“WAIT!”   
  
And you’re off. Bolting across the lawn, the van jerks to a stop just up the road. The door slides open, the chill doesn’t even get to you before you’re being pulled in by a few sets of arms, all warm, all welcome, none of which would ever hurt you.   
  
You plop in next to Karkat in the middle, who immediately settles his arm around you. Protectively, you think, or maybe comfortingly. Are you still crying?   
  
“Glad you changed your mind.” Gamzee drawls, glancing back at you from the driver’s seat. Your friends are all here, Terezi, Rose, Kanaya, Karkat, Gamzee, and of course Vriska, because what would this shitcharade be without a willful, extravagantly obnoxious leader.    
  
Your face hurts, and you’re not sure why until you follow the line of sight up to the rearview mirror and see yourself smiling wide, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen that, but you don’t think you’ve ever felt this way before either.    
  
“So,” You pant out, getting comfortable next to Karkat. “Where to first?”


End file.
